Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday announced her support for an upcoming bill from Vermont’s independent Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Sanders said in March that he would follow through on his long-held support for single-payer insurance by introducing a bill extending Medicare-like coverage to achieve universal health care. The bill, which is still being crafted, is due to be unveiled Wednesday

Warren follows California Sen. Kamala Harris, who recently backed the Sanders bill at an Oakland town hall. The three senators are considered top-tier contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, should they decide to run.

Warren’s support of the bill unites the two most powerful members of the party’s left flank, which used to be called the “Warren wing” before being rechristened the “Sanders wing,” given his surprisingly close contest with Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

To have Sanders, Warren, and Harris on the same bill sends a signal that this is the central Democratic vehicle for health care policy reform going forward, which stretches the contours of a debate that previously excluded single-payer.

“There’s a lot of potential to really grow this idea if you have six or seven Democrats all talking about why we need a single-payer system,” said Josh Miller-Lewis, a spokesperson for Sanders, on the Warren endorsement. “This is a big moment.” Miller-Lewis added that the bill was still being written.

Signing on to a single-payer bill with momentum may seem like an obvious political move for Warren, but it’s not that simple. Warren has achieved stature in Congress; signing on to a colleague’s bill rather than drafting one to her own specifications is a concession to Sanders. The move is a nod to Sanders’s elevation within the progressive movement.

Indeed, embedded in Warren’s letter to supporters is a note that Sanders’s bill is “one way” to address health care policy. “Medicare for All is one way that we can give every single person in the country access to high quality health care,” she wrote. “Everyone is covered. Nobody goes broke paying a medical bill. Families don’t have to bear the costs of heartbreaking medical disasters on their own.”

Warren has also had a complicated past political relationship with single-payer schemes. During her 2012 campaign for the Senate, her opponent, Republican Scott Brown, criticized her for backing single-payer, while Warren’s leftist primary opponent criticized her for not backing it.

“I made a clear statement I’m the only candidate in this race who supports single-payer,” Marisa DeFranco, Warren’s challenger from the left, told MassLive.com. “No one disabused me of that notion.” Warren never explicitly backed single-payer in that campaign, instead saying that the focus needed to be on defending the Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama’s signature health care reform law.

Brown, however, based his charge of Warren’s support for single-payer on a chapter in a 2008 book she co-authored with Deborah Thorne, a University of Idaho professor. In the book, “Health at Risk: America’s Ailing Health System — and How to Heal It,” edited by Jacob Hacker, who would later become known as the father of public option, they wrote: “We approach the health care debates from a single perspective: maintaining the financial stability of families confronting illness or injury. The most obvious solution would be universal single-payer health care.”

Thorne and Warren, then a professor at Harvard Law School, added that such a solution may be “politically unacceptable.”

It’s not anymore.

Top photo: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks at a news conference on the Social Security system in Washington on Feb. 16, 2017.

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I’m greatly suspicious when blatantly lobbyist-bought politicians like Max Baucus and Kamala Harris all of a sudden decide to support something their big-money donors don’t like, especially something the party’s neoliberal establishment (Baucus) intentionally killed only 7 or 8 years ago. It’s far more likely they’re moles planning to undermine the possibility of single-payer from within the movement, just as a corrupt DNC did to the democracy and fairness of its own party’s presidential primaries during the last election.

When Dick Gephardt, the former Democratic House minority leader left Congress to join the evil forces, the KOCH forces in the Insurance industry, I knew then we were going to see a battle unimagined against the rights of the People to have healthcare for all, for all medical needs, no matter the type. He can afford any kind of health care he likes, so what does it matter to him. And his decision to FIGHT AGAINST People rather then FOR them, revealed his SNAKE like personality. The nation “knows” him now. He was never a true Democrat.

Whether the Single Payer system be administered under Medicare or Medicaid, it needs to be coverage of ALL medical health needs. Teeth, Eyes, Minds, Bodies – all need to be covered. The KOCH influences will try to PICK apart the threads of the legislation. It will need to be bold, hard core, with no loops to cut into that can cause people living in poverty or the working class any more horror stories or horror out of pocket Health Costs.

I just hope that Sanders will block all influences from the Insurance Industry, and let his legislation BE ABOUT the needs of PEOPLE. Worry about the rich, cutthroat insurance industry, and how to STOP it from power over our health. The same influences have had power over our AIR, WATER, SOIL, FOOD sources, and look where that has taken us. Don’t let them hold power over our health care any longer.

This was the Democratic Party’s deal with the devil. They rejected their voter base and went with the donor class to create and market a health law, the so-called Affordable Care Act, that protected the profits of the medical-industrial complex, and it backfired.

In the 2010 election, 63 Democratic incumbents lost their seats in Congress and the party has been in decline ever since with a record low number of elected officials nationally. On issue after issue, the Democratic Party betrayed its base and voters finally gave up, choosing either to vote for other parties or not vote at all.

The question now is whether the Democrats will change.

So far, despite the title of the New York Times article, the answer is no. Although there is widespread voter support for single payer, Nancy Pelosi says the party is not going there and is funneling advocates’ energy to the state level, even though state single payer systems are not possible without federal legislation. At the national level, Democrats are paying lip service to Medicare for All: “We need to get there eventually but right now our task is to fix the ACA” is the current talking point.

The reality is that the political currents have shifted. The public is not going along with the con. People want solutions to the healthcare crisis, not more tinkering with the current failed healthcare system. Across the country, the message is clear that the public supports National Improved Medicare for All. And whichever political party in power embraces this will see a surge in popularity.

One driver of the higher costs is a provision of the Medicare Part D law, essentially authored by PhRMA, which prevents Medicare from using its collective bargaining power to negotiate for better drug prices. (Congressman Billy Tauzin, R-La., the lawmaker who helped usher in the PhRMA legislation, later became a PhRMA lobbyist earning $11.6 million in annual salary.) A recent study found that $16 billion could be saved annually by simply allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower rates.

All we have to do is to look at other countries that have better health care at lower cost and copy them.
So which industrialized countries do it better than the US? The answer is, all of them. They all not only provide healthcare for the entire population at about half the cost, but they get better health outcomes than in the US. Their citizens have longer lifespans, fewer infant mortalities and less chronic disease.
Here’s a list of countries abandoning their healthcare system and adopting our model to replace it:

And the republicans had eight years to offer a better solution, and they came up with what.
Obama care was all wrong, but it did help people, not eliminate health care for 23 million peopleduring the first year.

I have not found any clear answers on whether Medicare Part D will cover contraceptives. I know for a fact that Medicare A and B will NOT cover contraception or “elective” sterilizations. “Medicare for All”, if not done correctly, could be a Trojan horse to take away reproductive rights as well as gender reassignment procedures, especially if all other health insurances are rendered defunct by law. At the very least it could provide a back door channel in which abortion could be rendered illegal, if “self pay” is not allowed in accessing health care. I hope I’m wrong on this.

Do you want the answer to our health care problems here it is. I just found great insurance for myself, well under $200 a month. It’s cheaper than anything I can sell and better than anything I can buy that is ACA compliant. It uses a nationwide Network put together by multiplan dot com.
AgileHealthInsurance is the one I found today. I have been certified for multiple years to sell the ACA, I was on the ACA for multiple years, I still council people on using the ACA. The ACA insurance I could get at the lowest price was $605 a month with a $5,000 deductible before it paid anything. The ACA does not need young healthy people on it, the ACA needs competition introduced. There is no competition in the ACA, it’s all been legislated out. As a benefits counselor I advise everybody to go take a look at these other competitive options and see what your health insurance could be.

Full public disclosure I am in no way affiliated with any of these companies . I literally just heard and did some research about them today. I might think about investing in them though. I do not wish to advertise for anybody and understand the rules of posting in common sections. But I honestly believe that everybody needs to look at this information.

The cynical response to this? The only reason Warren is backing this is because she’s running in 2020. yes she was a corporate neoliberal die hard Hillary supporter. Now has he actually changed in any significant way? I doubt it.

Also keep in mind that Warren supports Israel’s illegal and immoral Gaza Blockade. You support apartheid AND universal health care? Massive contradiction.

Yes, “Saint” Liz Warren is jumping on to other things. First it was from Bernie to Crooked Hillary. Recently it was to get on the Gramps McCain “war all the time” bus. And I believe you are right, it’s all about running in 2020.

Well, she won’t get my vote again for Senator, or for POTUS. She exposed what a typical conviction and ethics free and on board Dem she is with an interview with Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks where she said that the most important issue for 2018 is “Russia”. What a CLOWN.

I think that the bill should include some sort of a debt consolidation and forgiveness in it. It’s pointless to make a single payer system partly because of the crushing debt that people acquire from medical bills etc. and then still have all the previous medical bills from the old system still on people’s credit reports. Just my two cents…

There is single payer and then there is single payer: Medicare currently only covers 80 percent of your bills, the rest is up to you unless you pay out of pocket for a private Medigap plan, which is usually outrageously expensive. Moreover, it won’t cover dental or vision or prescription drugs (you have to buy a separate plan for that). If Medicare for all is the goal, they might want to start with improving Medicare, because it is far from universal in its coverage and some people with Medicare still go broke–just ask the totally and permanently disabled.

True, but this is not how things are done. So much money would be saved. There is no system that provides for all costs covered, the patient usu has to pay a copay. Most countries do not cover vision or dental to a great extent– there is more patient determination in those areas. Once we have it, we can amend it

HR 676 is the Gold Standard for single-payer. healthcare for all. Over 100 Dems are signed-on. Word’s out that Senator Sanders’ bill falls far short of HR 676 [https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/676].

According to Doctors Margaret Flowers and Carol Paris and thousands of We the People – U.S. everyday working citizens, HR 676, otherwise called N.I.M.A. (National Improved Medicare for All) , is the Real Deal ! On par with Canada, Britain and other major industrialized nations, we will spend far less as a country on U.S. physician visits, hospital stays, nursing home care, eye care and dental visits. To hell with the corporate insurance freeloaders.

I personally am ashamed of Senator Sanders, if this leaked information is true. If Mr. Sanders tries to mollify the corporate interests in any way, I and thousands are walking away from “The Revolution” and back into into the unchartered waters of the streets of America to shake-loose these corporate parasites that make their livlihoods at the expense of We The People’s labor. HEALTH CARE is a RIGHT for ALL.

On “Medicare for All,” where does Medicaid fit in? It appears that one Democrat is (after all this time) mentioning a “Medicaid for All” plan, which is highly unlikely for a number of reasons. Currently, the elderly poor and the disabled rely on dual benefits, with Medicaid covering the Medicare premiums, prescription costs, etc. If Medicaid is ended, they will have no coverage (since they wouldn’t be able to meet the Medicare premiums, prescription co-pays, etc.) Obviously, Democrats took the lead in dismantling the “safety net” years ago, so there is no trust that they would actually protect Medicaid.

Right on the CrookdClinton appraisal. Well, she accused SenSanders of failing HER election! Then she blames FBIDirector Comey when she should be GRATEFUL his circuses PREVENTED her criminal case from reaching the top DOJ for decision on Prosecuting! #3 was she could not see the changes in the DemParty– we do not need that dumbness for Potus. #4 Blames all the DP for being a mess– they all supported her and cried. Yes, Fakeness with a capF!

Warren “jumps on board” is a funny headline. It’s got to be the slowest moving train of all time. She could have got on board on her hands and knees… crawling backwards. Sanders has been talking about his Medicaid for All plan for two years but never seems to actually let anyone read it.

As a resident of Massachusettes I can tell you Liz is a phony. What took her so long? She is a warmonger and never backed Burnie or Single payer HC except in words. She is full of shit and this is all about runner her for pres in 3 years. She is a lieing sack of pus like the the right wing party she belongs to. Ditto for Burnie. People need to wake up to the reality. The US is now a police state who’s only exports are war, infernal engines of death and violence aginst poor people. Believe me Liz is on board with ALL OF IT!. A pox on her and hers.

A suggestion: Every human being innately possesses a vast potential, sometimes in the most expected ways and well beyond simplistic measures of intelligence or personality.

I think the real question is whether we perceive human beings as the solution to problems or simply the source. Of course, both can be true but the point is what do we perceive and thus how do we act? I believe in the former and am very pleased that I can. For those who believe in the later, I suggest trying harder.

That’s because efforts to bring other people’s potential to the fore, whether successful or not, ultimately benefit oneself most of all.

I agree with you 100%, but that is not the debate in the US. The discussion around healthcare is: how are we going to FUND AND PAY for healthcare and HOW MUCH do people have to PAY?

I agree every human has intrinsic value with great potential, but we live in a capitalist economy. As capitalism demands, you have to view people, their skills, and even their information and beliefs, as commodities if you wish to maintain dominance in a market. It is considered virtuous behavior to profit by aggressivly grabbing as much value as you can to maximize efficiency and profits. That’s the name of the capitalism game, and the US and its people have been proud to live that story.

If progressives actually want to change things, they need to get smart and aggressive with their questions to authority.

I have a feeling though. I have listened to, read, and met progressives, and I have the feeling they want to maintain the status quo. They’re usually “middle-class” types, mostly white “color-blind” folk, who proselytize their moral superiority from the safety of their gated communities. They’re like a soft left-wing libertarianism.

As the monopoly issuer of it’s own currency, the U.S government could literally print the money. The Constitution gives the U.S. Treasury the sole authority to coin legal tender. The Treasury could pay for all sorts of things this way. So long as the productive capacity can keep pace with demand, there is no inflation.

Thank you. Yes, that is all true. But perhaps it is true because we allow it to be.

I understand that until Mr. Friedman’s ideology of “profit is the only morality” for business became the rave in ’80s or ’90s, businesses at least supported the pretense of commitment to the communities in which they existed, and many did believe it. Of course, that is a win-win situation for everyone.

Since then however, every business school graduate has learned that profit is all that matters. This is somehow supposed to be high-minded or rational or pragmatic but really it is nothing more than dumping still more common sense constraints that were intended to keep human greed in check. Look what has happened. Has society as a whole improved? Is everyone better off? A very small percentage has realized monstrous gains in wealth. But, really, are they better off or have they just become bug-fuck crazy? Honestly, for myself, the elite have not a single thing that I want.

So, perhaps a system that now values profit over human life, value, potential, that sees people, who could be the source of untold innovation and prosperity for everyone, as merely a means to someone’s small end. That is simply reducing value for everyone; as an old adage says, “like trading gold for rocks, or food for filth.”

In any case, everyone possesses their own internal narrative, or perhaps, “map of reality.” The ideology of using people as a means to an end instead of treating them like the end itself (Emmanuel Kant) is what currently prevails. It has locked our societies world-wide into an ever accelerating concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands, perpetual conflict and war, continual loss of agency by ordinary people, loss of privacy, constant surveillance (to keep us safe…), and constant, constant anxiety and paranoia.

There is also a saying that if you sit in an outhouse long enough you no longer notice the smell. It just seems normal. There is absolutely nothing normal nor good about the current state of our society and world and it all, in my opinion, stems from how individuals view other individuals, and themselves. After all, if we perceive others as merely a means to an end, that is certainly, in our heart of hearts, how we view ourselves. Shitty, no?

Fortunately, the solution is also within our own hands and of our own choice and no one can make that for us. Again, for myself,I do not strive to respect others so much for their sake, but for my own. In which case, we both win.

At least Mr. Sanders is not kowtowing to AIPAC, Likud’s propaganda arm in the US in contrast to literally every other elected official in Washington, both GOP and Democrat, and in particular not during the crucial time of the Democratic primary when every other candidate was lining up to kiss their ring and beg for donations.

Certainly a step in the right direction and not without political peril considering the current mind-set of Washington’s elite and the perceived political necessity of AIPAC’s support.

It would be nice to break that particular strangle-hold and its pernicious consequences for promoting not-in-America’s-best-interest, US policy.

This is the UNited States of America. OT. We have no care for what you say in this discussion. It is about a-m-e-r-I-c-a-n-s trying to live and not die, not about your obsession of circumsiced men! When you go to the grocery store, you buy groceries– you are not looking at car parts!!

If Sanders supports slow ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, why do you think that he cares about your healthcare? What kind of logic makes you think: “Sanders supports dropping bombs on Palestinian families, but he really cares about my family and their medical care”

I hope healthcare gets at least a half a loaf. Only when we the aged and potentially sick generation pass yielding a more balanced health pool can a much better system with life long contribution of taxes or health savings accounts or insurance or combination with some price control and dare I say the R word reasonable rationing. Greed by corporations of the Healthcare Industrial Complex wishing big profits and individuals wanting Cadillac insurance at a Chevy price have yielded the current healthcare dollar disaster. Some changes as Bernie seems to suggests to keep us off the rocks with an eye to a new generation to better steward a future Universal Healthcare system. People who have paid into Cadillac insurance for a life time will not now want to drive a Chevy. Extra insurance for the wealthy should be available perhaps required. In the end we need good healthcare for all. Some rationing of care is needed for example no need to continue to give chemotherapy to patients with non-responding terminal cancer. Further how do you uses cancer immunotherapy synergy with drugs priced at 100k each? I hate price controls but greed must be balance with need. The immunotherapy I am working on could cost a few dollars a shot. If big Pharma runs it another 100K drug, Generic Company welcome.

I would add that a lot of treatments are expensive, not because of any natural resource constraints, but because of patents lasting too long and being granted too easily. Yes, developing and testing drugs costs money, but pharmaceutical companies spend far more on advertising than on R&D, which tells me that patent law is too generous.

With that in mind, I don’t think that providing chemotherapy to a terminal cancer patient should cost that much.

“I don’t think that providing chemotherapy to a terminal cancer patient should cost that much.” Seems associated clinical care and treatment is around 5-10k and times this for multiple of specialized therapies? and mostly just gives false hope and reduces quality of remaining life, More pain no gain.

“Patent law is too generous”. Patent law as designed by the founding fathers was to grant temporary monopoly to generate innovation and reward invention/inventors, a Faustian bargain, but generally a good thing to pay for the cost and risk of innovation and progress. Patent law like many areas of governance from warfare, to taxes, to education, to healthcare has been usurped to support wealth accumulation. I wrote an article on the patent process years ago before our system changed from first to invent to first to file:http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/18875/title/Concord-And-Conflicts-Blur-Science-And-Invention/

Say a bright young man/person came up with a plan to treat cancer. They would face an uphill fight. Most would have no choose to go to Big Pharma begging. An old hand such as myself might try veterinary care terminal animal and a generic company, it is all high dollar and sadly hit or miss, mostly chance, luck and some merit. I have published the foundations of my work on cancer immunotherapy for nearly 50 years, it is not a new field as some claim. I have some new ideas and must seek legal IP protection through the patent system or the ideas and any my rolling snowball through hell might save are dead.https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S1726-4901(16)30184-8

Why should chemotherapy cost $15K per treatment? For 15K you can get over 10 oz of gold. Are they injecting pure gold into patients? Is there something in the salary of oncology doctors and nurses that justify that absurd price?

While I am not as familiar with medical patents, in IT, patents have been a disaster that is killing innovation. You might have heard of court judgment against Samsung for behalf of Apple on Apple’s patent on curved edges on the phone. No I am not kidding.

Did you know that Microsoft is making a lot of money from Android phones? How? Microsoft claims that Linux kernel in android is violating microsoft’s patents (which they will not name) and they threaten to sue any company that uses Android OS. Most companies pay up rather than risk lawsuit.

In fact there are companies – called patent trolls – whose business model is to file bogus patents and then extort other companies for money by threatening litigation. The resulting litigation risk has killed off most innovation.

Richard Stalman said that copyright is a deal made by public with publishers at a time when such deal was beneficial to the public. This is also true of patents. If patents are not serving the public anymore than we ought to re-examine them or even abolish them.

“I don’t think that providing chemotherapy to a terminal cancer patient should cost that much.”
Chemotherapy direct and indirect cost about 5-10k a pop more for repeated or complicated protocols. Generally more pain no gain for terminal non-respond-er patients.

Without IP patent protection my past and future efforts to roll a research snowball through hell and any it might save are dead. If it works out Big Pharma will try to claim, buy it or kill it. There is some hope in the Big generic companies with the bucks to push back? Even with a “good eye for the field” of immunotherapy of cancer it is just chance, luck and some merit.
My invention:https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S1726-4901(16)30184-8

You don’t need rationing so long as supply meets demand. What you are essentially saying is we need to have a way to pay for all of this. Between increased labor supply and increased capital investments in the form of automation/AI, we can supply enough healthcare to avoid rationing.

I would also say that, even when free, demand for medical care is tempered. If TVs were free, people would stockpile unlimited amount of TVs. When medical care is free, people still dread and avoid going to the doctor.

Anthony & Mira I do not disagree that for medicine in America “The Rent Is To Damn High.” Yet I as an inventor of a drug and methods of use must sail the sea and weather or drown in them. No point in cursing the sky and wind, it is what t is.

Chemotherapy is not just a single drug a protocol. For example “high density chemotherapy” involves several cycles of four chemo chemicals given at max doses, and three hours of preparation with blood tests and many other drugs so the chemo does not kill the patient. This is follow up by a very expensive drug to keep white cell counts up and avoid bleeding or infection. Just the procedure takes 7 hours in the hospital. Doctors, nurses administering drugs, pharmacist making them up for each patient. Sadly chemo is sometimes just last hope feel good medicine that makes terminal patients sicker. It is a hard thing for caregivers to give up on treatment and harder still to give up on your life and go home and call hospice.

The cancer war, I have fought it from its beginning, in general involves very committed kind and good people. However the end result as far as increased survival for metastatic cancer has generally made a lot of “suits” rich and done little for the patient.

I have a cancer drug, I can plan A do a start up sell stock and if I get backing become a millionaire. General the drugs do not have enough efficacy for FDA approval leaving the stock-holds broke and the patients no better off. If approved by FDA I can be a billionaire , immunotherapy drugs even those with minimal efficacy sell for $$$$$ very high prices about say 10K per treatment 100k per therapy.

Plan B sell out to a pharmaceutical company and be a multimillionaire. Drug if FDA approved still high dollar and I get richer.

Door number three Plan C get some data at personal cost and contact a powerful rich generic company and sleep at night. You might go bankrupt or just make a decent living.

End game you chose the plan that has the best hope of getting the drug to the patient and hope against hope policy makers get US a better deal/system.

Yes, the system is sick and the system sucks but it is for now an intractable reality.

Read the draft of the bill. It’s not Single Payer. It still has deductibles and co-pays and includes Public Option – which would inevitably become the hi-risk pool.

Bernie has crafted this bill, just like his campaign. He clearly consulted the big Dem donors before he released the draft – just like he ultimately crafted his campaign.

The fact that Miss Johnny Come Lately has jumped on board is really meaningless.

Miss Pro-Occupation, Pro-Perpetual War is simply doing what she always does: get ready for her inevitable run for President. Everything she does is carefully crafted to get her the nomination – no different from Obomba.

If she was a true progressive, she would have supported Bernie during the Mass. primary. He would have gotten the additional 2% of the vote that he needed to win that state and would have gotten the momentum he needed to win the nomination – despite Hillary and the DNC’s blatant cheating.

Interesting. I’d like to see what Bernie comes up with. In terms of Presidential politics, it might be good to have Bernie as run President and one of these Senators as VP. Then Bernie could retire two years in let the VP run as the incumbent.

Trump is working with Schumer and Pelosi to get rid of the debt ceiling. Maybe it is a sign of things to come.

Of course they will most of all have to overcome fifth-column opposition by the Democratic Party leadership.

“The people” could certainly help by demanding meaningful, structural changes that would undo the direction of the DP under the “Clinton ideology” which has been guiding it since the ’90s. For one, simply refusing to reward the kind of behavior that has become the DP norm. For examples of this, look at the way the DP leadership views its base from the leaked DNC emails; a bunch of fools to be manipulated. Give us your money and vote and then STFU.

If not, I am afraid that all these good efforts will be for naught. It is really the people themselves who will allow this outcome or not.

Having suffered through for-profit insurance coverage all my life until I qualified for Medicare, I know first hand that Medicare is infinitely superior to for-profit insurance. When corporations have your body for a profit center, your wellbeing comes in a poor second to profits.

How come everyone on Medicare has to get “for-profit” insurance to pay that portion of health care and drugs that the “single-payer” does not pay?

Big Pharma and Hospital cartels will likely support this new scheme as they can increase their profits if their prices can be decided through politics. Remember, there is no free lunch. These high healthcare prices will be paid by taxpayers. Be careful of what you wish for.

Are people really that stupid not to see that this is just politics and lies? Democratic party is dead. There is no one who represent and fights for progressive principals. It is all smoke and mirrors and this woman is just bark and no bite. Fake news, is all I have to say.

“Recent reports are that Sanders’ bill falls far short of HR 676 in fundamental ways. In fact, Sanders’ bill is a multi-payer system not a single payer system. His bill reportedly would allow private insurers to compete with the public system, allow the wealthy to buy their way out of the public system and allow investor-owned health facilities to continue to profit while providing more expensive and lower quality health care.”

Interesting – no one was discussing it the entire time since Obamacare passed, while the Dems had the presidency and some chance of doing anything. It was as if “single payer” or “public option” were forbidden phrases.

Now that they are powerless its its good PR to argue about it with no power to affect change.

While I wouldn’t turn down her support or give her grief over her occasional progressive stance, her “political calculations” seem to me to be rather like those of one Hillary Clinton, though starting from a much further progressive / left viewpoint, and with a less selfish foundation. Still, her lack of taking a strong position is troubling.

Would I vote for her for President? If she was on the ballot against any current R or Trump, hell yes, whereas I would NOT vote for Hillary, ever, however, I’d rather someone who gets it that this country is ripe for a left-wing sweep; we’re done with the oligarchs and want someone interested in helping We, The People, instead of those already rich – like more than 80% of all Democrats (and absolutely all Republicans).

That said, Sanders himself, in backing Hillary, was a huge disappointment. They’d just robbed him of the nomination which, if the contest were fair, he would have won and he’d be president now, not Trump. So, he COULD have gone with Jill Stein, if he had real balls.

… I’m cautiously waiting to see how their actions turn out.

FAR too soon to comment on Kamila Harris – though she’s been a politician in my state for a while now.

And THAT is what lead to Trump; the Dems being NON-leaders when leadership was required.

Hillary and her Democratic Party are the reason we have Trump, it’s not the voter’s fault; Sanders would have swept into power with perhaps even a super-majority since BOTH Trump AND Hillary were and are so awful.

Now getting a Republican Senator Collins to sign on this bill would ensure a bipartisan effort for the American People who truly want health insurance for all Americans.

Another observation while reading this article- this piece of legislation is not about the Democratic Party but about the people who participate everyday in this political process- this is for them and about them, the American People. Perhaps this is where the party really fails us.

As a former Sanders supporter, I am in favor of his (their) push for “Single Payer” if it amounts to the federal government helping the States set up and run their own systems. They are after all of the size of the many Nations which have succeeded in producing good health care service systems. The United States Federal government, like the EU should not interfere.

I don’t know why this is news today. I’ve been getting emails soliciting donations from the Warren camp for weeks touting her support of single payer. Some even made it sound like she was leading the fight for it.

Jacob Hacker is too young to be Father of Anything, but he and Pierson write excellent books.
And another thing: I watched a helluva 22-minute interview with Thomas Frank on Real News this morning. (No date, just a listing as 1/4 on YT.) If anybody has a grasp of what went wrong with the Democratic party decades ago, it is Mr Frank. If anybody has a more succinct sentence or two for the metamorphosis the Party must take (from the inside out, not a “messaging” aspect [assholes]) than Mr Frank, please introduce me to him/her.

He is the reason that the early clutch for donors/cash makes me double over in pain. They have not copped to the reasons why HRC lost and deserved to lose. They have not figured out – other than m e s s a g i n g – how to get people to support the Dems again.

I have been a huge fan of Mrs Warren, even though she is flawed, as Bernie is flawed. Unless we get some antiwar Progressive, while the grassroots movements grow stronger, it will be hard to go for perfection. Perfection doesn’t exist in human nature.

How come nobody talking about Mr Art of the Deal’s great giveaway to the Dems last night? Because unless they load it with pork, this proposal merely allows the contours of the government to function as it should? Right on.

The last Democrat I voted for as president was George McGovern in 1972, and even back then the establishment of the Democratic party was so furious at his nomination (voters were actually allowed to choose candidates back then; there were no super delegates) that they refused all support during the election process. The Democratic Party has been shit for a very long time.

Just enough dumb die-hard Democrats in the last 24 hrs have invoked the idea that somehow they scored this big victory over Trump that I’m pretty confident that no such event occurred. It’s the rhetoric that gives it away.

I recall when the SNAP cuts were a big victory in 2014. You see, the Republicans wanted bigger cuts! And we only allowed smaller cuts!! We win!!! We’re awesome!!!!

it is so sad lizzy didn’t endorse Bernie before the mass primary. she might be vp today. even sadder is the bullshit these politicians spew every time they open their mouths.
hopefully Bernie’s bill offers everyone the option to BUY in to a medicare for all single payer program and not some half measure. chase the for profit guys out of healthcare!

Or less. If it had any chance of actually supplying anything remotely resembling healthcare, in a remotely affordable and sufficient manner, to the populace, Harris wouldn’t bother pretending to support it.

“chase the for profit guys out of healthcare!”
But that removes the entire purpose of neolib/neoconism, extracting extraordinary profit from ordinary people as painfully and for as long a time as possible. Why go into politics at all if one can’t indulge in the simple little sadistic pleasures the are its raison d’être.?

Reports should make it clear that sing’e payer is not the same as Medicare for all. People on Medicare are still denied coverage, even those who are paying $200/month for supplemental coverage. Under single payer, everyone is covered for everything except what’s deemed to be elective procedures or medications. Single payer is thus superior to Medicare for all. That said, Medicare for all would be a big improvement over the immoral system we have now.

You make a good point about single-payer as Medicare for all compared with the snake oil version of single-payer as universal health care coverage being used as an election year ploy by the Clintonites to attract campaign donations.

Basic single-payer Medicare is facing insolvency so adding millions more people to it will only make it more insolvent as Jerry Brown discovered in the California single-payer drama.

About 50% of our population are covered by private good to excellent coverage insurance that many pay nothing for and most are at least subsidized by their employers. These people will be forced to pay directly for any single-payer scheme, all the costs for lower quality coverage.

A moldy sandwich in a sack of spiders would be a big improvement over the immoral system we have now.

Whether it’s MFA, SP, or the sandwich, I’ll take it from anyone who grows enough of a pair to finally get it done, smash the shackles of the private “insurance” cartel, and turn the US into a developed nation—even from that guy.